“It Follows” is on pace to be the top-grossing film in Radius-twc’s history after the low-budget horror film pulled in $4 million in its first weekend of wide release.

That was a strong enough showing to crack the weekend top five, despite heavy competition from the likes of “Get Hard,” “Home” and “Insurgent.” Credit critics with lifting this one out of the arthouse and into the mainstream. The creepy story of a young girl who experiences a supernatural stalker after a bizarre sexual experience currently enjoys a 95% “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a rare feat given that horror is one of the most critically derided genres.

“When you know you’ve got something big, you’ve got to get it out there,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Rentrak. “They’re building an audience the same way that you would with an indie platform release. They’ve got terrific buzz,
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Welcome to the March 10, 2015 edition of Outrage Watch, HitFix's (almost) daily rundown of all the things folks are peeved about in entertainment. Today's top story: "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt" has a race problem.
Though reaction to the Netflix comedy has been almost universally positive, Vulture writer Libby Hill has a major problem with the subplot involving Jane Krakowski's character, revealed to be a Native American who wears color contacts and dyes her hair blonde in order to pass for white.
"This specific backstory is most frustrating because it doesn’t serve a purpose, either narratively or comedically," Hill writes. "There must be more compelling (and funnier!) ways to give Jacqueline a backstory that don’t require sloppily marginalizing a group of people who are already as marginalized as you can get." Some folks apparently aren't too happy with the depiction of Ki Hong Lee's character either.
[Vulture]
Want more? There's
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Do you have nightmares about Bill Lumbergh telling you to put new cover sheets on your Tps reports? For some, the corporate cubicle setting is as horrifying as the creepy boiler rooms that Freddy Krueger haunts in the A Nightmare on Elm Street movies. Script excerpts and storyboards for an imagined tenth film in the Elm Street franchise show Freddy tormenting a coma patient by placing him in a mind-numbing office environment where meaningless meetings, tear-inducing small talk, and countless hours of hellish tasks reign supreme, with no escape in sight. Also included in our latest round-up are Blu-ray / DVD release details and cover art for the Salma Hayek-starring Everly and information on the 20 recently announced Star Wars books that will take place in the time period between Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi and Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens.

Park City, Utah – This is the last batch of Sundance reviews I’ve got to offer. A tad late, but I couldn’t let these films go uncommented on, especially with their special offerings for those who seek them out. I hope that each of these films finds an audience.

Aside from “Listen to Me Marlon” (which will be debuting on Showtime soon), I have also recommended both of these films for the third annual Chicago Critics Film Festival, the next fest for your radar, which takes off May 1-7, 2015 at the Music Box Theater.

Nonetheless, below are reviews for documentaries “Listen to Me Marlon” and “Pervert Park,” along with a take on a personal favorite, the narrative film “Seoul Searching.” After that, you’ll find a brief recap of my Sundance experience, along with very brief words on a few other movies I saw.

One of the most acerbically hilarious new voices in the American indie world is writer/director Leslye Headland, whose dark hearted 2012 directorial debut Bachelorette was a jagged counterpoint to the unoffending female comedy fantasies, something like Bridesmaids but more uneasily wicked. After writing 2014’s remake of About Last Night, she’s back with her sophomore effort, Sleeping with Other People, a romcom that borrows a bit heavily from When Harry Met Sally. At times funny and sincere in its depiction of modern heterosexual romantic entanglements, Headland’s latest also becomes a bit too self-aware of its own conventions, and instead of reinventing them, sadly becomes a willing victim to its own fantastic monstrousness. Described playfully by the director as a ‘love grenade’ at the film’s premiere, Headland may very well launch bombs at formulaic interpretations of love, sex, and the whole damn thing,
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"Bigger girls do better in comedy."
So says Rebel Wilson, who will reprise her role as "Fat Amy" this spring in Universal Pictures' musical comedy Pitch Perfect 2. "I took something that was seen as a disadvantage--no one thinks, if you're fat, that you're going to be an actress and everyone's going to love you--and turned it into a positive," she tells Australia's Daily Life.
Why does Wilson think "bigger girls do better in comedy?"
"I don't know why," says Wilson, who's also starred Bachelorette and Bridesmaids. "Maybe because people find it easier to laugh. It's very hard to laugh at someone who's very attractive, I think.
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Plot (courtesy of Sundance): Jake and Lainey impulsively lose their virginity to each other in college. When their paths cross 12 years later in New York, they realize they both have become serial cheaters. Bonding over their chronic infidelity, they form a platonic friendship to support each other in their quests for healthy romantic relationships.

Review: Right from the beginning, we know Lainey (Brie) is a train wreck. She tries to get a dorm door down, and Jake (Sudeikis) is somehow charmed by this mess. Mainly because we learn he’s a little messed up too. That was college, but now we’re in present day,
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Thanks to Entertainment Weekly, we’ve got a new image from HBO’s upcoming Westworld TV adaptation, featuring Ed Harris as The Man in Black, a character described as “the distillation of pure villainy into one man”…

The directors of “Bachelorette” and “Miss Representation” return to Sundance with, respectively, a brilliantly bawdy comedy and a vital look at how our culture raises...

I try not to make sweeping pronouncements about Sundance movies until I’m back at sea level, and my brain is receiving its usual amounts of oxygen; there’s something about the air up here that can occasionally lead to irrational exuberance. (Google “The Spitfire Grill” or “Happy, Texas” if you don’t know what I mean.)

Even though I’m still in Park City, Utah, (and panting when I walk up hills) I’ll
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One of my favorite romantic comedies of all time is When Harry Met Sally. It's classic, timeless and delivers the perfect depiction of friendship between the opposite sexes, dating and relationships. And while countless films have tried to duplicate the brilliance of director Rob Reiner and writer Nora Eprhon, many of them fall tragically short. But thankfully, we have Sleeping with Other People from Bachelorette writer and director Leslye Headland, and this is hopefully as close as we'll get to what is essentially a remake of the aforementioned 1989 romantic comedy staple. But the film has a style and attitude all its own.
Headland herself describes the film as When Harry Met Sally for assholes, and since the story follows Jake (Jason Sudeikis) and Lainey (Alison Brie), two people who have problems committing to relationships and cheat to get out of them, that's pretty damn accurate. They meet in college and
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The last time writer and director Leslye Headland premiered a film at Sundance, it was 2012’s “Bachelorette,” a raunchy twist on the “girls just wanna have fun” subgenre of comedy, and one that might have arrived just a touch too soon after the box office juggernaut that was “Bridesmaids” (in a strange twist, Paul Feig’s feel-good comedy hit was nominated for two Oscars the morning after “Bachelorette” premiered at the festival). Headland adapted that feature from her own dark comedic play of the same name, and the results were decidedly mixed. A pitch black comedy with a winning cast of stars who were all saddled with despicable characters that repulsed each other (and their audience) at every possible turn. Fortunately, Headland doesn’t seem compelled to return to that kind of material, as the filmmaker has now made a refreshingly funny and romantic feature that is more than worth
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Park City, Utah -- Alison Brie feels supported.
Not only did the actress refer to shooting her latest "Sleeping With Other People" as "the greatest experience I've ever known in film," but she is also feeling the love for her TV show "Community," which has moved from being network television on NBC to being run via Yahoo.
"NBC kept us on the air for a long time and I'm very grateful, but being with Yahoo, we've never felt more supported as a show," Brie told HitFix from the red carpet at the Sundance Film Festival, where "Sleeping" premiered last night (Jan. 24). "Theyre excited to market the show, they're excited about the show, which I think is something we haven't felt in a long time."
As for this comedy movie -- in which she starred opposite of Jason Sudeikis -- Brie experienced a couple of firsts: it was her first time filming with a female director,
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You expect a romantic comedy titled "Sleeping With Other People" to feature a lot of sex, and on that front Leslye Headland's follow-up to "Bachelorette," which premiered last night at Sundance, didn't disappoint.
The comedy stars Alison Brie and Jason Sudeikis as a pair who lost their virginity to each other in college, only to reunite years later in a sex addicts support group in New York. The two actors appear in several compromising positions with a variety of partners (including Amanda Peet and a smarmy Adam Scott). What Headland's film is notable for is its total lack of nudity despite the provocative subject matter.
"I personally don't like nudity," Headland explained during the post-screening discussion at the Eccles.
"It was Leslye's choice," Brie added. "It especially speaks to her innovation and creativity to create sex scenes that are about intimacy and connection and not about nudity — and can still be.
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At a time when audiences are more friendly to raunch-coms than to rom-coms, writer-director Leslye Headland tries to split the difference in “Sleeping With Other People.” Essentially an updated “When Harry Met Sally … ” with texting (or, as Headland described the characters at the Sundance preem, “with a–holes”), two quippy New Yorkers spend more than 90 minutes trying to answer whether a man and a woman can be friends without romance entering the picture. Adhering pretty strictly to romantic-comedy conventions, the pic feels too broad for the arthouse and too small for the multiplex, leaving it in an uncomfortable commercial gray area.

Headland gets the meet-cute out of the way in the first scene, as Lainey (Alison Brie) makes a spectacle in a college dorm yelling at the top of her lungs and banging on the door of the unseen object of her affection. Jake (Jason Sudeikis) pulls her away to
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Like the characters she creates, writer/director/playwright/producer Leslye Headland is delightfully unhinged. She doesn't hold back in her work or during an interview.
Headland was last at Sundance with her raucous, female-driven directorial debut "Bachelorette," based on her hit off-Broadway play. Since then she has developed projects for television and wrote the script for the Kevin Hart film, "About Last Night." Headland's anticipated second feature, "Sleeping with Other People," premieres in Park City tonight and is said to be as raunchy and incisive about relationships like her debut. The comedy stars Alison Brie and Jason Sudeikis as a pair who lose their virginity to each other in college, only to later reunite at a sex addicts support group in New York.
Headland spoke with Indiewire before Sundance got underway to discuss her latest film, shooting sex scenes and what she makes of the controversy surrounding the recent Academy Award.
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Filmmaking careers are born at Sundance, as evidenced by directors Kevin Smith (“Clerks”), J.C. Chandor (“Margin Call”) and Damien Chazelle (“Whiplash”). This year’s festival features plenty of returning artists as well as new voices with something fresh to say. TheWrap talked to buyers and sellers before whittling down this list of 10 buzzworthy filmmakers on the eve of Sundance. Something tells us we’ll be hearing about them for years to come.

Buyers will be out in full force this week in Park City but with so many options to choose from, it helps to have a cheat sheet to prioritize the must-see acquisition titles at Sundance. After talking to buyers and sellers alike, here are the 10 most promising titles with the loudest buzz heading into this year’s festival.

What’s the Deal?: The highlight of Sundance’s opening night lineup is this raunchy comedy from director Bryan Buckley featuring co-writer Melissa Rauch in what could prove to be a star-making performance. The “Big Bang Theory” actress plays a washed-up Olympic gymnast whose local celebrity is threatened by the arrival of a promising young gymnast seeking a mentor. Sundance describes the foul-mouthed protagonist as “a lovably loathsome character who makes Tonya Harding look like Grace Kelly,” so perhaps this will be the next “Bad Words?”

Leslye Headland was last at Sundance for the premiere of her 2012 film "Bachelorette," with Kirsten Dunst, Lizzy Caplan and Rebel Wilson. Since then she has developed some projects for television and wrote the script for the Kevin Hart film, "About Last Night."
Headlan's latest film, "Sleeping with Other People," revisits similar themes of modern relationships. Years after impulsively losing their virginity to each other in college, Lainey (Alison Brie) and Jake (Jason Sudeikis) meet at a support group in New York ("What's a nice girl like you doing at a sex addicts meeting?"). A spark resurfaces, but they've walked this road before. Abject failures in romance who lead lives of serial infidelity and self-sabotage, they agree to a platonic friendship to mutually support their recovery—and what's more supportive than teaching your friend proper self-stimulation? Can love bloom while you're sleeping with other people?
What it's about: characters
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